Specialist cave divers located five villagers alive inside a flooded cave in central Laos on Wednesday, more than eight days after flash flooding sealed the group underground. The five were found in Xaisomboun province, though two others from the original group remain unaccounted for. Search operations for the missing pair continued through Wednesday afternoon.
The villagers entered the cave on May 19 but were trapped when heavy rain triggered flash flooding that blocked the exit, according to Lao and Thai rescue teams involved in the operation. One of the group escaped before the cave exit was sealed and alerted authorities to the incident, Bounkham Luanglath, the leader of the Rescue Volunteer for People organisation in Laos, told the Associated Press.
The group had entered the cave to search for gold, according to Lao and Thai rescue teams.
Kengkard Bongkawong, head of operations for the Thai Metta Tham Rescue group, confirmed in a Facebook post on Wednesday that the five people located were “in good health.” “Search continues for 2 more,” he added. Bongkawong has been documenting the operation through regular video updates posted to his page throughout the week.
Finnish diver Mikko Paasi, who is leading the rescue mission inside the cave, told CBS News chief correspondent Matt Gutman by phone on Wednesday that he and his partner planned to continue searching for those still missing. Paasi described the five survivors as disoriented and unsure of where they were, but physically unharmed.
“All healthy and in good spirits, but the extraction is still ahead and it ain’t going to be easy,” Paasi wrote on Instagram, adding that locating the five was “only a brief relief.” “The task so far has been far from easy and everybody involved has done amazing work,” he wrote.
The current priority, Paasi told CBS News, is delivering food and water to the five survivors — a task he described as difficult given conditions inside the cave. Rescuers are weighing whether to pump water out of the cave so the survivors can walk to the exit, but there are concerns about a carbon dioxide build-up in the small underground chamber where the five were found, and whether they have the physical strength to make the journey out.
To reach the survivors, divers navigated a narrow 340-metre flooded tunnel. Rescue teams working above ground were seen embracing and jumping for joy when word arrived that five people had been found alive, in footage widely shared on social media on Wednesday. CNN
Bounkham Luanglath of the Rescue Volunteer for People organisation confirmed to the Associated Press that five people were found safe but that the search for the remaining two would continue.
Background
Xaisomboun is a mountainous, sparsely populated province in central Laos. The Lao government invited the Thai Metta Tham Rescue group to join the emergency operation. Among those assisting were divers who participated in the 2018 rescue in northern Thailand, when 12 schoolboys and their football coach were trapped for more than two weeks in a cave before being safely brought out, according to the Associated Press. That operation drew international attention and required the expertise of military divers from multiple countries. The Laos cave incident is the most serious of its kind in the region since that event.
What Happens Next
Paasi said that the ideal extraction method would be to pump the floodwater out of the cave, allowing the survivors to walk out unassisted. However, the viability of that approach depends on the carbon dioxide levels inside and the physical condition of the five people found. Paasi and his dive partner confirmed they would return into the tunnel to continue searching for the two people still missing. Rescue teams have given no timeline for completing either the extraction of the five survivors or the search for the remaining two.
